Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Chile For Dessert

Talk about a recipe for an upset stomach.

"Runoff election on tap in Chile; Ex-leader wins vote but falls short of majority" by Pascale Bonnefoy |  New York Times, November 18, 2013

SANTIAGO, Chile — After she left the presidency, Michelle Bachelet, who was president of Chile from 2006 to 2010, a physician and Socialist Party member, served as the first director of a United Nations body called UN Women; she resigned in March and returned to Chile to seek the nomination of her center-left Concertación coalition, which she won in a primary. The coalition then struck the uncomfortable New Majority alliance with the Communist Party in an effort to broaden support for its program. The New Majority program calls for free universal higher education within six years, changes to the country’s privatized pension system (though not a total overhaul), improvements to the public health system and, to pay for it all, higher corporate taxes and elimination of tax deferrals for companies. 

Oh, the stink of a rigged election, but who complains when they technically win? 

I'd be worried about the run-off.

Some observers think that will not suffice. And it will be difficult to line up the necessary support in Congress. Conservative lawmakers were expected to retain enough sway to block major changes in the constitution, making compromises necessary.

Chilean gridlock?

What the web butchery added to my print:

And the New Majority coalition is riven with conflicting views on many policies, especially between the Christian Democrats and the Communists. Those problems tempered voters’ expectations.

So have mine. I consider politics nothing more than a s***-show diversion and distraction now. I pay attention to it because it is important; however, I expect nothing from them.

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For some reason the “addressing [of] inequality [that] has been at the heart of this campaign” was scrubbed from the Globe's web verse.

"Tests show no poison in Chilean poet’s remains" by Luis Andres Henao |  Associated Press, November 09, 2013

SANTIAGO, Chile — The four-decade mystery of whether Chilean Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda was poisoned was seemingly cleared up on Friday, when forensic test results showed no chemical agents in his bones. But his family and driver were not satisfied and said they’ll request more tests.

Neruda died under suspicious circumstances in the chaos that followed Chile’s 1973 military coup. Officials said the poet died of cancer. But Neruda’s driver and aide has said for years that dictatorship agents injected poison into the poet’s stomach while he was at the Santa Maria clinic in Santiago. His body was exhumed in April in an effort to determine the cause of death.

‘‘No relevant chemical substances have been found that could be linked to Mr. Neruda’s death,’’ said the head of Chile’s medical legal service.

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Yeah, and Allende killed himself, too. Sorry, dear readers from down south, but I'm sick of superficial shit lacking in substance. I can't read this stuff anymore, I'm sorry. 

Time for a bicarbonate.